Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
She cleared her throat and continued, “Clearly you loved your wife very much.”
My hand rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. “I did love Lisa, but we’d been having some problems with our marriage.”
Emma looked down and kicked at something on the floor. “Aiden, before you go on, I need you to know I am not the type of person who searches for gossip. But yesterday, when I had coffee with Tammy, she sort of told me a little bit about you and Lisa. She wasn’t gossiping either,” she rushed to add. “It’s just that she walked up on Nancy being rather rude to me in front of Hadley. Tammy wanted to give me the backstory on why Nancy was acting the way she was.”
Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “What did Nancy say to you?”
She shrugged. “Something along the lines of me trying to use Hadley to get to you.”
I sighed and jerked a hand through my hair. “Crap. I’m sorry, I should have warned you about her last Saturday, when you met her. I honestly didn’t think she’d try to sink her claws into you that quickly.”
Emma chuckled nervously. “Well, you don’t have to worry about me, I can take care of myself. Now that I know the reason behind her attitude, I can handle myself better next time. If there is a next time.”
This woman was unbelievable. She seemed so strong on the outside, yet I’d glimpsed her vulnerability this morning. I longed to learn more about her, and at the same time, my head screamed for me to keep my distance.
“Did Tammy tell you Lisa and I had split up? That she’d moved out of the house not long before she found out she had cancer?”
She looked surprised. “No. She mentioned you had trouble in the marriage, but that you were working on it.”
Turning around, I walked back over to the window. “Lisa and I got married at a very young age. We loved each other, but I’m not sure, had she not gotten pregnant, if we would’ve actually stayed together. We had some great times, and the first couple of years after Hadley was born, we felt like a family. But both of us refused to admit something was missing. Then Lisa decided she wanted a different life. She wanted to move away from Estes Park, and I didn’t. I love my job. I love this town. I love these mountains.”
“And she didn’t?” Emma asked, finally taking a seat on one of the chairs at my desk. I was glad to see she was no longer ready to flee.
“She did, but she wanted to move to a bigger city. Once upon a time, she wanted to travel and see the world. After she lost our first baby, she fell into this depression. I had no idea how to pull her out of it, so we started to try for another baby pretty much right away. I can’t say that was a mistake, because I have Hadley. But it probably wasn’t what Lisa needed. Like I said, things were great for a few years after Hadley was born, but when she was about three, Lisa asked me to move.”
The room grew quiet for a moment as I got lost in the memory.
Finally, I shook my head. “I’m sure you can guess what my answer was. I had no intention of leaving, and that caused even more friction between us. We did try marriage counseling for a bit.”
“It didn’t help?” Emma asked.
“I don’t know. For me, all it did was make Lisa more determined to start a new life somewhere else. I started to resent her and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t happy here with the life we’d built. I know that was unfair, especially considering I don’t think either one of us was truly in love with the other. A part of me wonders if she knew then that she was sick, and she simply wanted to follow a lost dream. Sometimes I wish I would have encouraged her.”
Looking into Emma’s eyes, I let out a breath. “The guilt I have for not giving her the things she wanted is what drives me to get lost in a bottle of whiskey some nights. The day she found out she had cancer, I was on a search and rescue. She’d told me about the appointment. We were living apart at the time, but I knew she was going to her doctor and was nervous about it. I was up in those mountains looking for some tourists who thought they could easily find their way back to the trail if they went off of it to explore. I wasn’t there for Lisa on one of the hardest days of her life. And now I have these…”
I stopped talking, and after a moment, Emma tilted her head and asked, “You have what?”